


A spectre is haunting Fortnums

by oursin



Category: Nancy Mitford - Fandom, The Pursuit of Love and related novels
Genre: Mitfordverse, Other, minor characters - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-07-07
Updated: 2010-07-07
Packaged: 2017-10-10 10:33:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,234
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/98785
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/oursin/pseuds/oursin
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Two second wives find something in common in spite of their differences, in Fortnum and Mason, shortly after the Second World War</p>
            </blockquote>





	A spectre is haunting Fortnums

Her waistband uncomfortably tight, Pixie Kroesig looked regretfully at the last scone on the plate. The scones here were still good, even if the cream was not real. For a brief moment she regretted the plenty of America. But giving in to Tony's persuasions to accompany Moira out of impending danger had meant returning, wellfed and fit, to austerity and rationing, a Labour government, and, above all, a nation of people who had been through an experience that they thought, even if they didn't say, she had shirked (however grateful they'd been for the food parcels she'd sent). She would gladly have fire-watched, worked in a first-aid post, driven an ambulance, or even taken in evacuees at the country house. But Tony-- once his Parliamentary mission had been completed, he'd rushed back home with surprising alacrity and had a good, if not dangerous, war.

Would things have been different if they'd had their own children? (Those discreet operations she'd never told him about, before Linda had finally bolted and freed him: perhaps they...?)

She looked again at the scone. Perhaps she should give some thought to banting. One did not have to go to the ridiculous excesses of Sonia Montdore.

The waiter cleared his throat, and she looked up to murmurs about would she mind sharing her table: she nodded, smiled, and prepared to retreat into polite silence, and then recognised the other woman. Severe tweeds, even severer hornrimmed glasses, hair that looked as though it had never received the attentions of a decent hairdresser scraped back into a practical bun, a hat that it was impossible to imagine anyone actually choosing -- 'Lavender! Lavender D -- Talbot! Good heavens!' They had never been in exactly the same set, especially since Lavender had become a flaming Red and married dreadful Christian Talbot, but as girls they had been at the same dances and house-parties, followed the same hunts. 'I wouldn't have expected to see you here.'

Lavender smiled as she sat down. 'Oh, I'm buying a few little treats for Pa-in-law's birthday.' She ordered tea, and lit a cigarette. Lavender, of course, had had a very good war indeed. First there was that business in occupied France, then there was her work with evacuees, her job at the Ministry, the committees she'd sat on. Pixie wondered what she was doing now. Something serious and important, judging by the bursting briefcase beside her chair. And presumably was still with dreadful Christian Talbot.

'And how's Tony?' asked Lavender.

Oh, Tony's fine.' She had spent so long doing nothing but support his career, never pushing him to divorce Linda, studying all his likes and dislikes, listening to him prosing on, and now they didn't even play golf together anymore. Tony preferred to play with people who could be 'useful', or else daughters of his friends whom he could instruct how to stand and hit the ball. The exercise made little impression on his expanding waistline. 'Very busy of course. How's Christian?'

'Oh, we're both frantically busy - some days we hardly see one another.' She sipped her tea. 'And how's little - no, I suppose she must be almost grown up by now - Moira?'

'Still in America - the child adores it there.' She paused. 'But didn't - er, wasn't there....?' Being away for so long she had missed so much helpful gossip.

'Oh, the child wasn't Christian's! Some French boulevardier that Linda picked up after she'd left him, one is given to understand. That good sensible cousin of hers was quite happy to take charge, I'm much relieved to say.' How very tidy, though Pixie enviously. 'Christian may have the odd moment of sentimental nostalgia about Linda, but even he'd draw the line at being responsible for her by-blow.'

Pixie blinked. The question popped out before she'd even thought it: 'Christian too?'

'You mean Tony....? But surely you and he....'

'Might I have a cigarette?' Lavender held out her case, flicked efficiently with her lighter as Pixie took one. 'When I got back from America I found he'd hung that portrait - you know, the one where she's wearing that flashy pearl and ruby necklace she was so fond of? - in the sitting room of his London flat. He claimed it was because the artist's appreciated madly, but I don't think so.'

'With Christian it's a battered old snapshot that he thinks I don't know he keeps in his wallet.'

'And he goes on and on about how much she helped him, socially -- when at the time he was always complaining to me about her little pansy-boy friends', she noticed Lavender carefully not raising her eyebrows, and remembered seeing her name appended to a letter about homosexual law reform somewhere recently, 'running in and out of the house at all hours. But now he remembers all the glamorous parties he'd never have got to without her. I did far more for him, but he seems to have forgotten that completely.'

Lavender sighed. 'That's what you get for being a a comrade and helpmeet: they don't notice you, you're a comfy old slipper. They notice, they remember, the woman who disturbed their lives, who didn't fit in, who crossed their purposes...' She shrugged. 'Of course, Linda was very amusing and charming, quite apart from her beauty. It was really rather sweet to see her with the refugees at Perpignan: she was trying so hard, and I'm sure most of them preferred her to dreary old me.'

'Oh yes, you were childhood friends, I'd forgotten that.'

Lavender poured herself another cup of tea, looking thoughtful. 'Not exactly. We were one of the few families Lady Alconleigh considered suitable company. Her snobbery was just as harmful as Lord A's violence (though I must say I was utterly petrified of him as a child). She wouldn't let the girls go to school for fear of meeting the wrong sort of people, chose governesses for how cheap they were rather than their competence, she was insanely fussy about even the girls they met, never mind her medieval views on chaperonage. I thought I had problems with my own ma when I wanted to train as a nurse, but at least I didn't have to bolt (by the way, had you heard that Jassy is actually working in the movies these days? - writing scripts, they say). They lived in a bubble and they had no real friends outside it, except for cousin Fanny. I was never among the "Hons", and Linda always thought me a great bore.' She stubbed out her cigarette. 'But I'd have gone mad with boredom in a life like hers. Well, I must be going.' She glanced around for the waiter.

Pixie looked after the briskly vanishing, badly-dressed, figure. She'd heard rumours that it was on the cards that she would end up as Dame Lavender. And wondered what she herself might have done if she'd turned her talents to a career of her own instead of using them for Tony's. But it was too hard for women to become MPs - and then she choked as she inhaled, thinking of the widows who had taken over their husbands' seats. Or stepped in to the seats when their husbands went to the Lords. She took a sip of cooling tea. Though the America business would always be a problem... Still, she could start taking a more active interest, renew old contacts, stop just sitting around regretting.


End file.
